Living Green; Being Green; Loving Green...
Doing my part to nurture Mother Earth.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Mother's going GREEN Day 63 - Green your Hotel Stay

As with your air travel when going on vacation you can look for hotels you are doing something for the environment and state as much in their policy. For us though we chose a hotel that would offer us a good rate - since my husband is in the industry we got a really good rate. However, although they have an environmental policy on their corporate web page - in my opinion it does not add up to much.

Having said that there are ways you can still "green" your stay at the hotel and it is similar to what you are already doing at home. (just thought of something funny....call ahead and ask what type of light bulbs are in the rooms - if it is not the environmentally friendly kind - perhaps we can pack a few and replace what is in our room anyway - an environmental token) Anyway back to how you can green your stay....

-- On entering your room unplug some of the many lamps (there always seem to be so many lamps in hotel rooms) as we already know that even if it is plugged in it still uses energy. Turn the air conditioning down or off or heating down.

-- Conserve water as you would at home (not running the tap while you clean your teeth; maintaining your 3 to 5 minute shower)

-- Ensure that you turn off all lights when leaving the room - if you get a turn down service ask that they do not turn on any lights or radio. (My pre-mother life was also in the hotel industry and I remember that when our VIP hotel guests would check in we would have the room set in a 'welcoming atmosphere': some gentle lighting (light turned on) their favourite music playing on the radio (radio turned on) etc. Looking back I can see how wasteful this is as guests never show up when expected and that energy just wasted perhaps for hours).

-- Reuse your towels for at least a week. That is what we do at home - so why should it change when on vacation. Most hotels offer you the choice - that if you hang your towel up - you do not require new ones. Although this is not always followed by the housekeeping staff I found a cool little sign from Go Green Travel which is what I will be using to ensure we reuse our towels and elimanate the energy used to wash them after we have only used it once.

-- Don't use the little packages of soap, shampoo and body wash. It is probably full of chemicals. Instead bring and use your own tried and trusted products which are environmentally friendly and you will not waste all the 'small' packages.

-- Use the little recycle bin that most hotels offer in the room and recycle all that you possibly can.

1 comment:

If every person did these simple things while on vacation, it would make a huge impact! I think we all seem to lose some bit of control while on vacation - for me, it is the binge eating junk. I think I'll continue to binge eat, but make a special point to remember to be green while away! Great post!

I give some tips of my own at greenergrassnotes.blogspot.com if you want to check it out.